in the field services, and the records show a still further decrease in this respect for 1927. However, there was an increase of more than 11,000 in the number of applications received by the district offices of the commission, which is evidence of an increasing interest on the part of the public in the civil service and the opportunities it offers for employment. This is further evidenced by the fact that there were 493,617 visitors to the various field bureaus of information, an increase of 53,737 over the previous year.

Owing to the diversion of funds for travel, from district inspection work to the investigative work for Prohibition Service, and because of the assignment of district officials to such investigations, it was not possible for many local boards to be visited during the past year. As a result the number of such inspection trips was reduced from 1,264 for 1926 to 595 for 1927.

Additional positions have been placed under the district system, including engineer-draftsman, senior, and assistant engineer-draftsman in the Bureau of Public Roads; subprofessional positions in the Bureau of Mines; teacher of power sewing, Federal Industrial Institution for Women; junior scientific aid, Forest Service; and— perhaps the most interesting--airplane pilots and airplane mechanics in the Bureau of Entomology, employed in connection with experiments in distributing poisons by airplane for the destruction of insects.

The largest military center in the United States is located at San Antonio, Tex.; major activities of practically all branches of the Army are carried on here. The employment of the large number of civilians necessary in these Army activities at San Antonio and vicinity has been materially expedited by the establishment of a local board at Fort Sam Houston, which practically serves as a subdistrict office with respect to mechanical trades and unclassified positions.

It has been unnecessary in some localities to hold examinations as frequently as in the past. The increased pay for the Post Office Service also tends to attract a better class of applicants, and there is a smaller turnover.

In one district special emphasis has been placed on the checking of statements in applications concerning arrest or other court record. In 1926 there were 920 persons barred from examination because they had sworn falsely that they had never been arrested or charged with crime or misdemeanor; in 1927 there were 534 cases of debarment for similar reasons. Federal officials have expressed appreciation of the action of the district offices in furnishing information as to court records of employees.

Character investigations have been conducted at the larger post offices in the fourth, sixth, and ninth districts, as a result of which

16 persons have been barred from competing in examinations and 29 applications have been canceled. Aside from these results, the postmasters have been furnished with positive information as to the character of eligibles reached for appointment. Fingerprinting of eligibles has been continued in Boston, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis, and Philadelphia; and the records show that 175 applicants have been barred as a result of the fingerprint identifications; at New York and St. Louis alone, out of those called in for fingerprinting, 1,043 failed to report. It is assumed that some of these eligibles failed to report because of fear of identification. Undoubtedly, the knowledge that all persons will be fingerprinted before appointment has been a deterrent to the unfit. About 16 per cent of those who pass field examinations for New York City and vicinity are subsequently eliminated through the medium of the fingerprint. The commission is indebted to the police officials in the cities where searches are carried on for their cooperation. In St. Louis the results obtained through fingerprinting eligibles for the post office were so favorable that the postmaster has requested that no appointee, even temporaries during rush periods, be permitted to enter on duty until his fingerprint has been taken and the police records searched.

WOMEN IN THE SERVICE

Women in the Government service are increasing both in numbers and in the importance of their duties. Their advance is especially noticeable in the biological, economic, and physical science branches, and in law.

There are nearly 80,000 women employees in the executive civil service. Women probably fill more than half the positions for which men and women are equally suitable. Positions of letter carrier, railway postal clerk, and mechanic, of which there are large numbers at navy yards, arsenals, and on other public work, are illustrations of positions not suitable for women.

In its first report in 1883 the commission said:

Nowhere on the part of the commission or its subordinates is there any favor or disadvantage allowed by reason of sex. Only under free, open, competitive examinations have the worthiest women the opportunities, and the Government the protection, which arise from allowing character and capacity to win the precedence and the places their due. The need for political influence or for importunate solicitations, especially disagreeable to women, for securing appointments in the classified service exists no longer.

A survey of several Government departments in 1925, made by the Department of Labor, to ascertain the percentage of women in the higher-paid positions, showed that 16.2 per cent were receiving $1,860 and more per annum. In commenting on the survey, the

Women's Bureau in its latest bulletin points out the fact that there is a widening field for women's service in the Government departments, and adds:

Even the two-thirds of the women receiving salaries of $1,860 and over in the establishments included in the study were in clerical or stenographic and typing positions, the other third had entered many occupations which require specialized education and experience.

THE APPORTIONMENT

The civil service act and rules establish the principle of equal distribution of appointments in Washington on the basis of relative population through certification "as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant." 2

A slight change has been made in the method of certification under the apportionment. The system of certification by division of States into five groups, described in the Thirtieth Report, which was followed in filling clerical and certain other positions, has been replaced by the simplified method already in use in filling scientific and technical positions. Under this system (described in the Twenty-eighth Annual Report) eligibles are certified down to a certain average from the group of States in arrears, followed by certification in their order from the States in excess, the District of Columbia being last. Eligibles entitled to military preference and surplus employees whose names appear on the reemployment register are, however, excepted, by Executive order, from the apportionment, although required to establish residence.

The principle of apportionment through certification gives States themselves power largely to regulate the share of appointments they shall receive, by the relative numbers and classes of eligibles they furnish.

A survey of past examination records of the various States in arrears-usually those most distant from Washington-discloses a lack of eligibles, corresponding closely with the shortage of apportioned appointments; the registers for the apportioned service show a preponderance of eligibles from States in excess. This condition repeated annually makes, of course, for an increasing disparity in the apportionment, with no possibility of reducing the inequality already existing.

For many positions requiring specialized training, eligibles from States in excess must be certified after the list from the States in arrears is exhausted. For instance, it was necessary at times during the past year to certify junior stenographers with low averages from

2 The arrangement of States for certification to carry this principle into effect is shown in Table 3 of the appendix of this report.

the District of Columbia, the lists from all the States having been exhausted. With the hope of increasing the share of eligibles available from States in arrears, a junior stenographer examination was opened only to citizens of such States.

Despite this and similar measures, and the widespread publicity given examinations to secure greater competition from States in arrears, no decided improvement is noticeable in the apportionment. Only about 7 per cent of classified positions are subject to the apportionment. The bulk of these positions are clerical, paying an initial salary usually of $1,320 per annum, and subclerical, paying less. The low salaries paid, compared with those obtainable in the industries, do not attract eligibles from a distance, but the absence of industrial enterprise in Washington makes it easy to recruit from the immediate vicinity in filling these positions. The apportionment situation, however, is such as to afford excellent opportunity to citizens of States in arrears, especially with respect to positions of a scientific, professional, or technical character.

CLASSIFICATION ACT

During the year an Executive order was issued having as its object the amendment of the Executive order of June 19, 1924, for the purpose of bringing further into coordination the civil service act and the classification act of 1923, in the light of experience gained and decisions made since the latter act went into effect on July 1, 1924. The second paragraph of the Executive order of June 19, 1924, provides that:

Employees will be permitted to remain in the positions to which they have been allocated in accordance with the classification act of 1923 and receive the compensation attaching to such allocations, although contrary to existing provisions of the civil-service rules, but shall not thereby be given any different status for promotion or transfer than they had acquired under the civil-service rules prior to such allocation.

This order, it will be recalled, was issued in anticipation of the effective application of the classification act of 1923, under which positions in the departmental service at Washington were required to be allocated on the basis of the duties performed, regardless of the civil-service status of the then incumbents. As a result of this fundamental requirement of the act, some employees were allocated “out of status,” i. e., they were found in positions for which they had not properly qualified, or were receiving higher salaries than those to which their civil-service status would normally entitle them, or were performing skilled or classified manual duties although actually possessing only an unskilled laborer or unclassified status. The object of the order was to permit employees who were allocated out of

status to remain, nevertheless, in the positions they were occupying on July 1, 1924, without the necessity of qualifying regularly therefor, and to establish the restriction that such permission did not carry with it an exemption from future tests of fitness in the event of proposed promotion or transfer to different positions. In other words, the order was intended to convert a de facto status into a de jure status with a condition against further promotion or transfer except by passing such tests of fitness as were regularly required for such promotion or transfer.

According to the Comptroller General, the order likewise gave rise to the result that proposed salary increases of employees who were allocated out of status were restricted to the maximum pay to which such employees would have been entitled had they been allocated in positions corresponding to their civil-service or examination status, unless such employees later regularly qualified for their positions through regular examination. (4 Comp. Gen. 174, 524.) For example, since, under the classification act, "Minor clerical" work is allocated to grade 1 of the clerical, administrative, and fiscal service, carrying a range of pay from $1,140 to $1,500 per annum, a person with a minor clerical examination status was thereby limited to a maximum of $1,500 per annum, although the grade of the position which he was occupying on July 1, 1924, i. e., the evaluation of the duties of such position, might extend, for example, to as much as $1,680 or $1,860 per annum.

It developed, accordingly, that some out-of-status employees who were, under the Executive order of June 19, 1924, entitled to hold their positions, to which positions a certain maximum pay had been attached as a reward for high efficiency, consistently maintained, were unable to reap such reward, even if, on the basis of their service and their work records, they deserved such material recognition. Another phase of the administration of the Executive order of June 19, 1924, that was deserving of attention was that in a certain limited class of cases it worked undue hardship on out-of-status employees who, without any fault or delinquency on their part, did not continue to occupy the same class of positions they were holding on July 1, 1924, either because of their voluntary resignation, separation from the service on reduction of force, or reassignment to a lower class of positions. When such employees were nominated for reinstatement or for promotion back to the class of positions they had been occupying on July 1, 1924, it was necessary for them to qualify regularly, whereas if they had remained continuously in such class of positions, no further examination would ever have been necessary.